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Saturday, February 2, 2013

John Zorn - The Concealed (USA 2012)

Uncle Roddus Album Of The Week

One album per week is my allowance from Amazon this year and I'm gonna hit the John Zorn Catalogue pretty hard. Zorn has to be the most prolific composer/musician currently working and 2012 saw him release nearly one CD per month. I am working my way backwards through those releases and beyond with the occasional detour for latest releases and even the occasional purchase by other artists as important releases become available. I started the year of CD purchases a couple of weeks late as I was waiting for funds to arrive but got to purchase 2 Zorn CDs to start the ball rolling and The Concealed is the most recent release of the two from November 2012.
Zorn has several categories of releases he presents to us and although I am not intimate of which recordings fit or don't into these groups in detail, I can give a basic run-down of some of them. Of course as some of you may know already from earlier posts, Zorn's Masada Book one series is some of my favourite of his releases, then there is also The Book Of Angles:Masada Book two, Filmworks series, Composer Series, His earlier Naked City and Painkiller hardcore jazz thrash and his Game pieces amongst other sometimes difficult to pigeonhole releases. Over the last few years there has also been the 21st Century Mysticism series of which is where I believe The Concealed fits in.
A first class recording by a sextet of Zorn's regular players, producing an impressive collection of contemporary/modern jazz with hints of classical chamber music, world music and a very slight touch of Avant-garde, which is a usual mix of Zorn's music. This recording is some of Zorn's more accessible music and I really am enjoying the melodies and the quality of the soloing and overall get a very pleasant feeling and a sense of something of very high quality being presented here. As strong as this music is, and it is quite impressive that John can maintain such high standards over so many releases in so short a time, and as much as I am enjoying listening to it, and as much as I enjoy Zorn's music, this set hasn't taken me by the scruff of the neck and knocked my block off. Therefore I will have to rate it 4/5.

About Me

Well, I dig Music of almost all variants, I love tramping/hiking in the Bush/Mountains. I enjoy reading, movies and growing my vege garden. I muck around on my computer a lot and I also follow sports a bit, especially Rugby and Cricket.